The ripe berries of the genipa tree, called genipapo, have long been used throughout Central and South America to make syrups and liquors, but for a few years now unripe genipapo berries have become highly sought after for their ability to turn foods blue.

The coloring properties of unripe genipapo berries have been documented since the colonization of South America, when Europeans reported its use by local communities like the Tupinambás and the Pataxós as a temporary tattoo dye, but it wasn’t until 2014 that people learned about its potential to turn food blue as well. It was then that professor and biologist Valdely Kinupp published his book, Unconventional Food Plants in Brazil, where he detailed a process for extracting an edible blue pigment from genipapo berries. Natural blue pigments are very rare in the food industry, so Kinupp’s discovery caused quite a stir which eventually turned into a blue food craze.

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Moscow-based artist Alena Litvin has a very special gift – she can recreate a detailed photographic portraits using only colored pencils and mountains of talent. The results are often so impressive that you can barely tell the drawing apart from the photo.

Looking at her amazing drawings, it’s very hard to believe that Alena is a self-taught artist who has only been exercising her craft for the last eight years. From portraits of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson or Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, to regular people who commission her to draw portraits of their loved ones, there’s nothing the young Russian artist can’t pull off. She can take up to 10 days to finish a portrait, which may sound like a long time, but just look at the level of detail in some her artworks…

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A young Japanese couple have come up with an ingenious way of making their one-year-old son stop crying whenever he notices that his mother isn’t around – life-size cardboard cutouts of the woman placed strategically in the room he is playing in.

Fuki Sato recently became an overnight sensation after photos of her life-size cutouts went viral all around the world. It’s not that they’re unusually life-like – although they do seem very well done – it’s what they are used that has gotten the family so much attention online. Apparently Sato and er husband had been having trouble calming down their one-year-old boy, who would start to cry whenever he noticed that she wasn’t around. Since staying by his side 24/7 really wasn’t an option, they decided to have her be around the child all the time, while not really being there.

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You may think it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but I know one canine who definitely disagrees. Well, at least he looks like he does anyway, as Anuko, a five-year-old Siberian Husky has one of the grumpiest faces I’ve ever since on a canine.

Anuko first rose to internet stardom in 2015, when his owner, 22-year-old Jasmine Milton, from the UK, started posting photos of his  thoroughly unimpressed mug on social media, where they quickly went viral. He has been entertaining online audiences worldwide ever since, and has managed to build up quite a following on Facebook and Instagram. His fans are always on the lookout for new photos, but Anuko’s popularity always peaks around the Holiday Season, because his face simply doesn’t match the cheery atmosphere. We may have lost Grumpy Cat this year (RIP!), but his legacy is in good paws.

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Called ‘devil lips’, or ‘octopus lips’, a cosmetic procedure that allegedly involves inserting filler into the edge of the upper lip to give it a wavy look is getting a lot of attention on Instagram these days.

No one knows exactly when and where this unusual beauty trend originated, but some sources claim that the procedure was pioneered by Russian plastic surgeon Emelian Braude. One thing’s for sure, though, the unusual lip contouring technique has been raising eyebrows on social media, especially in Russia, where it’s supposedly the most popular. But before you pick up the phone and call your favorite plastic surgeon about the devil lips procedure, you should know that no one is yet clear if it actually exists. Some plastic surgeons say that getting this wavy contour through lip fillers alone is impossible, and attempting to to do can be very dangerous.

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If you’re wondering how hard it is to find affordable housing in Germany’s capital of Berlin, maybe this will give you an idea –  On November 24, a whopping 1,749 people showed up to view a reasonably-priced flat, even though it had only been put on the market the day before.

Located near the Schöneberg Town Hall, the popular flat on the third floor of a 1950s building offers 54 meters of usable space and features two rooms and a balcony. So far nothing to write home about, but what really got people interested was the monthly rent of €550 ($610) per month, including extra costs like heating and water. That’s considered a steal in the German capital, and even more so in the sought-after Schöneberg district, so no one was surprised to see people lining up outside for a viewing. They just didn’t expect over 1,700 of them on the same day.

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Square Off, the world’s smartest, most connected chess board, gives the centuries-old sport of chess a 21st century touch by allowing players halfway around the world to interact with physical pieces without actually touching them.

Chess has been available as a digital game for years, but true fans know that there’s nothing like playing on a high-quality physical board. That’s hard to do when your opponent is thousands of miles away, or at least it was until someone came up with away to allow people halfway around the world to play chess on a physical board made of rosewood. It looks like a magical set out of a Harry Potter movie, but it’s actually a wonder of technology that harnesses robotics and internet connectivity to make the impossible possible.

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Morris Villarroel, a Spanish scientist at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, wanted to have a more detailed and complete record of his everyday life, so he could figure out how to live more effectively. Ten years ago he started writing down all the things he did every day, and he’s been doing it ever since.

Villarroel had just turned 40 in February of 2010, when he decided to embark on an epic experiment of self-knowledge and self-improvement. He decided to keep a detailed record of everything going on in his life by meticulously writing all the experiences, the places he was in, the people he met, every 15 to 30 minutes of every day. He thought that this would not only help him better remember everything, but also help him better manage his time and day-to-day life. Nine years and nine months later, the scientist says that he was right.

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Dutch brand Vollebak recently unveiled what it calls the “world’s strongest jacket”. With an exterior made out of 100 percent dyneema, the strongest fiber known to man, the Indestructible Puffer can allegedly withstand whatever abuse you subject it to and last a lifetime.

Adventure clothing brand Vollebak has been creating cutting edge adventure sports clothes for years, and has become known for making some of the toughest garments on the planet. In the past, we’ve featured their virtually indestructible hoodie and a pair of pants designed to last at least 100 years, so we know than when they say their latest creation, the Indestructible Puffer, is the strongest jacket ever made, they mean it! Its outer layer is said to be 15 times stronger than steel and 40% stronger than high-strength aramid fibres, which makes it impervious to shearing, tearing, and blunt-force traumas.

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If the idea of having dozens of fish nibbling at your toes while you enjoy some traditional Indonesian cuisine sounds intriguing, you may want to check out this unique restaurant in Indonesia’s cultural capital of Yogyakarta.

Located far away from the city center, the Soto Cokro Kembang restaurant originally relied on a relaxing flower garden to attract patrons exhausted by the stress of urban life. However, when the owner’s father had the idea of turning the abandoned cow stalls nearby into a unique aquatic eating space, no one imagined that the quaint eatery would end up attracting people from all around the island nation. Owner Imam Nur says that the attention Soto Cokro Kembang is currently getting in the news and on social media is beyond what he ever imagined.

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He may not have Ace Ventura’s charm or his iconic hairdo, but Sun Jinren is a real-life pet detective in all the ways that matter. When he takes on a lost pet case, he pours all his effort as well as thousands of dollars in expensive equipment in order to find them.

Dubbed China’s first pet detective by the country’s media, Sun Jinren launched his business seven years ago and has since reunited about 1,000 lost pets with their owners. He has a success rate of around 70%, and despite charging a whopping 8,000 yuan ($1,130) per case, clients know his services are worth it. He now has an entire team working for his company and uses all sorts of high-tech gadgets to increase his chances of finding lost pets, including heat detectors, thermal imaging cameras and even an endoscope.

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Remember that story we ran a few months ago about a man who claimed he cured his terminal cancer with a cheap dog deworming medicine? Well, apparently it recently went viral in South Korea and stocks of the antiparasitic medicine have been depleted.

Back in May, the story of Joe Tippens, an Oklahoma man who allegedly cured his terminal with the help of a $5 dog deworming drug called fenbendazole, went viral. Doctors said the cancer had spread everywhere in his body and he only had about three months to live, but today he is cured and he credits the veterinary medicine for the miracle. The news made headlines all around the world, but it really made a big impact in South Korea, where stocks of fenbendazole have evaporated due to people buying it as a way to prevent or cure cancer.

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Kallima inachus, a species of nymphalid butterfly found in India and Japan, is known as the orange oakleaf or dead leaf butterfly for a very good reason – with its wings closed, this butterfly closely resembles a dried tree leaf.

It’s been said that the kallima inachus butterfly mimics a dead leaf better than an actual dead leaf, and as crazy as that sounds, it actually makes some sense. Somehow, this tiny creatures managed to raise its camouflage to such an extreme level that its wings feature a pointed leaf apex at the front tip, and a leaf stalk on the hindside, as well as a characteristic vein pattern, multiple shades of brown and orange, and even tiny imperfections like black spots or small tears. It’s a perfect camouflage artist.

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Mac’s Mission, a Missouri-based dog rescue, is used to taking in special dogs, but even for the staff here a puppy with a tail growing from his forehead was a pretty unusual sight.

Named Narwhal, in honor of his unusual appendage, the 10-week-old pup has become an internet sensation ever since photos of him were first posted on social media. He was brought in to the rescue because of his unusual look, as Mac’s Mission is known for taking in canines in need of special attention, such as blind and deaf dogs, dogs with three or five limbs, as well as dogs with cleft palates. The staff here thought they had seen it all, and then Narwhal came in and their jaws fell to the floor.

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Wildlife experts in India are trying to make sens of the mysterious deaths of thousands of birds near the country’s largest inland lake. While the reported death toll is currently around 2,000, locals claimed that it could reach 5,000, as carcasses allegedly cover an area stretching from 12 to 15 km around the lake.

Sambhar Lake, 80km south-west of the city of Jaipur, is India’s largest inland lake and a popular gathering place for migratory birds like flamingos, storks, sandpipers, redshanks, black-winged stilts, among dozens of species. Last Sunday, however, locals alerted authorities that the lake shoreline had become an eerie graveyard for thousands of birds, with only a few dozen still left alive as far as the eye could see. There were reportedly so many bodies that when people first saw them, they mistook them for piles of cow dung, but it didn’t take them long to realize that they were really bird carcasses from more than 10 species.

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